32. Scarlett #3
“I know you hate being here,” he murmurs.
“Fuck, Princess. I know you loathe this place. But it’s my home.
It’s my entire world, and I just…” He shrugs.
For the first time, maybe ever, he breaks eye contact and seems almost…
. Shy. “I want there to at least be one thing, one tiny reason, that you could want to stay.” Slowly, he brings his eyes back to mine, and like he’s conjured it out of nowhere, he draws my focus down to a small cardboard box with a plastic window in the side and a bright pink cupcake on the inside.
“Happy birthday, Scarlett.” He places the box in my hand, then he drapes his coat over Jasper’s stall wall and searches the pockets for a moment until he comes back with a single pink and white candle and a lighter.
“I want it on record that I sent men into town today purely to buy a pink candle.” He carefully peels the box open until all four walls lay flat against my palm, then he sticks the candle into the top and peeks up at me from beneath long lashes.
“I spent half the morning searching the kitchen. Searching the chow hall. I asked my mom. Asked the cooks. I even asked the nurses in the medical wing. Turns out, no one cares enough to stock pink candles.” Chuckling, he flicks the lighter to life and brings the orange flame across to the wick.
“I would have gone to town myself, but I was busy learning how to bake a fuckin’ cupcake. ”
Emotion backs up in my throat and pushes fresh tears into my eyes. “You baked this? For me?”
“First time in my entire life. Burned the first batch. Ran out of sugar for the second batch.” He lights the candle and flashes a boyish grin.
“Third time worked out just fine. And Koda enjoyed the shit out of baking with me all morning.” Depositing the lighter into his pocket, he sets his palm beneath my hand and lifts both to bring the cake closer.
“Do you need me to sing for you, Princess? Cause I will. I’ll do it.
But once you realize I don’t sound that great, you might think I’m punishing you when I’m not. ”
“You baked me a cake?” I swipe the irritating moisture from my cheeks. “How did you know it was my birthday?”
“I’m not just here to look good, ya know?” He tips his chin forward. “Now make a wish and blow. If you’re not careful, Jasper will poke his head over the gate and steal the whole thing before you get a taste.”
I peek back to the stall, only to come almost nose to nose with the beast and choke out a tear-filled laugh. “Oh my gosh! He’s so quiet. I didn’t even realize he’d come closer.”
“He’s an asshole.” Sebastion presses his palm to Jasper’s nose and pushes him back. “Hurry, or he’ll make you regret it.”
I snap my eyes shut and search for a wish. I rack my brain and try with everything I am to come up with something to hope for. To ask for.
Sadly, all I end up with is ‘I wish the world didn’t hurt so much.’ Which is actually pretty friggin’ pathetic, even for me. Still, I hold on to my wish and draw a deep breath, then I open my eyes and blow the candle out with a long exhale.
“Mmm. Good work.” Sebastion pinches my chin between his thumb and finger, tipping my head back and drawing me to the tips of my toes.
Then he folds over our joined hands and slides his tongue across my lips.
“I’m sorry I was raised with mercenaries and homicidal tendencies.
” He slips his tongue into my mouth and makes good on my wish, if only for a moment.
If only for as long as it’s just us, Jasper, and a bright pink cupcake.
“I’m sorry I don’t know how to speak without insensitive bullshit being my go-to. ”
Now I feel bad. “Sebastion, it’s—”
“I’m sorry I don’t know how to be anyone except this version of who I am.
I’m rough and mean and I lack basically every socially acceptable filter I would’ve learned if I’d gone to a regular school with regular people.
” He draws my tongue between his lips and nibbles.
Tasting. Savoring. “I’m sorry I’m not everything the twelve-year-old version of you daydreamed and wrote in your diaries about. ”
“Sebastion—”
He shakes his head and swallows my words. My heart. My soul, too.
“If you can look past all the bullshit, ignore all the rough edges, not want to run away all the fuckin’ time, and maybe smile when you think my name, then I promise to work on becoming the kind of guy you’d wanna tell your brother about.”
Oh God. Damn him for making my tears fall.
“I’ll protect you.” He crowds me against the stable gate and draws his thigh up between my legs. “I’ll protect you with my life. With a thousand lives and every explosive I can get my hands on. I’ll make you come at least once every single day.”
I choke out a pathetic, tummy-tingling giggle.
“My mission has changed,” he rumbles. “And that’s okay. Eventually, we all knew that would happen. My mission now revolves around you, Scarlett. My high-maintenance princess who isn’t actually high-maintenance at all.”
“I—”
“I call you princess to your face, because it pisses you off. But I call you Adelita when I speak to literally everyone else, because that’s how I see you.”
“A-Adelita?”
“So fucking strong,” he groans. “So brave and formidable. You don’t need to fight your own wars anymore, Scarlett, cause I’m right here, and I’m gonna stand in front of you till I can’t anymore.
But you’re so fuckin’ strong, you could fight.
And you’d win.” He glances down at the cupcake between us, drags the tip of his finger through bright pink icing, then he taps my bottom lip and grins as I open up.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” He trades his finger with his lips, so we both get to taste the sweet flavor on my tongue.
“You’re so perfect. You don’t see it because you’re always so hard on yourself. But I see it.”
Warmth fills my cheeks, partially because of his hard cock resting against my belly, but mostly because his words embarrass me. He flatters me. “You can stop talking now. I’m not mad at you anymore.”
“Never gonna stop telling you how obsessed I am with you.” He takes my cupcake in one hand and lifts me with the other. So strong. So capable. He pins me to the heavy wooden gate and brings the cupcake to my lips. “Lick it.”
Goddddddd. Blood thrums intoxicatingly through my veins, pulsing in my jeans until I’m not sure I know how to breathe anymore.
But I know how to do as I’m told. So I inch forward and suckle on the frosted pink tip.
“Good girl.” He dives in and demands his share of my birthday cake, nibbling on my tongue and squeezing my ass until his fingers pull my cheeks apart.
“I know it’s your birthday, Princess. I know you’re the one who gets to make wishes.
But I have a wish I wanna make, too.” He brings the cake higher and uses his tongue to take a heaped chunk of icing. Then he feeds it to me.
My breath comes out on a desperate groan, and my panties turn wet with need.
“I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. Because fuck, Adelita, you are the bravest, baddest soldier I ever met. Actually—” He bites into the side of my cake and slams his lips to mine.
Who even eats birthday cake the traditional way anymore?
Not me. Not when this way is far superior.
“I have two wishes.” He pulls back and searches my eyes. “I wish you didn’t want to hate me as much as you do. Because you’re exactly who I imagined when I was twelve and planning ahead.”
He sets my cupcake aside and trades it for his jacket, then he yanks me away from the stall door and carries me twelve feet to the left. Unlatching the gate and striding in, he holds me with just one arm and drags my sweater up until the fabric stops above my head.
He keeps my arms and elbows immobilized, fisting the excess fabric until I feel the pinch on my skin.
Then he sets me on my feet and drops his jacket onto the straw-covered floor.
He unsnaps my jeans and trails his tongue over my chest, then my belly.
Lowering to his knees, he nips at my hipbone and tugs the denim lower.
“I know you’re cold, and I know Jasper’s gonna peek over the wall and watch.
But he’s a cool dude, so he won’t tell anybody. ”
Stunned, I cast unsteady eyes to the right and find Jasper licking pink frosting off his lips.
He ate my cake!
“I’m gonna be right here, Princess.” He tugs my jeans all the way to my ankles, then he lowers to his back and pulls me across until I rest on my knees, one on each side of his face. “And I’m gonna feast till you’ve got nothing left to give.”
“Oh, God!” I cry out. “Sebastion…”
“You just have to sit.” He forces me down and holds me in place with his hands on my hips.
Even when I want to shoot through the ceiling, he pins me to his face.
Even when I fear the ferocity of my first release, filling his mouth with a gushing spray, he holds me down.
And when my body betrays me, launching me into the abyss with no more than a minute of his tongue touching my flesh, I simply sit, powerless to do anything else.
“Mmm.” He growls low in his throat, the vibration sparking more pleasure in my veins. “Feels like my birthday, too.”